Lina Said,a senior biology major, and Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Matthew Heard gave a presentation on plastic pollution at Shelby Bottoms Nature Center on Saturday January 26. The presentation focused on helping Nashville residents understand how small bits of microscopic plastics are effecting the Cumberland River and explained Lina’s senior research project that examined plastic there in the River and where it’s coming from.
The session also included a demonstration for adults and kids on how environmental scientists count plastic in water samples.
In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, more than 500 students from the Nashville area, including students from Belmont, Fisk, Lipscomb, Tennessee State, Trevecca Nazarene and Vanderbilt Universities, gathered together on Saturday, January 19 for a day of service to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King. After beginning their morning on at TSU’s Keen Hall for a kick-off event and keynote address given by Charlane Oliver, President of The Equity Alliance, the group was split into teams and headed into the city to work alongside nonprofits in the area.
More than 20 site locations were offered to students this year including Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, Trevecca’s Urban Farm, The Nashville Food Project, Thrift Alliance, Feed the Children and The Schrader Lane Vine Hill Child Care Center, among many others.
Participated students provided community partners with a number of completed service projects including sorting donations and merchandise, packing boxes of food and other household essentials, cleaning up a local park, cleaning facilities, organizing materials and painting.
Afterward completing their projects, the group re-assembled for reflection and celebration.
Tim Stewart, Director of Service Learning, said, “Seeing over 350 people of diverse backgrounds come together to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King by serving others was very inspiring. The greatness of our community was evident in Dr. King’s quote ‘everybody can be great…because anybody can serve’. We’re not there yet, but events like this give me hope that Dr. King’s Dream is very much alive.”
Photo provided by Trevecca Nazarene University Photographer
Associate Professor of Law Lucian Dervan recently received the Excellence in Scholarship award at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in New Orleans. The award was given by the East Asian Law & Society Section of the AALS. The piece for which the award was given was his new co-authored article titled “Bargained Justice: A Comparative Analysis of Plea Bargaining.” The article discusses the results of ongoing comparative research in the United States, Japan and South Korea. The research, undertaken with the assistance of a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, seeks to better understand the prevalence of false pleas of guilty globally and the impact of factors such as incentives, pretrial detention and risk aversion on defendant decision-making. Dervan said, “We hope that our work will bring further attention to the phenomenon on false pleas and assist in creating more accurate and reliable systems of criminal justice throughout the world.”
For Belmont students, this can mean all sorts of things. For a special group of dedicated Belmont alumni, this has come to mean traveling the US alongside Thomas Rhett’s fall arena tour, using their skills and abilities learned from their time on campus on the road. Rhett’s audio crew included five Belmont alumni, while other alumni also worked on different areas of the show.
The audio team included Chris Clark, Jeremy White, Trey Smith, Ashley Burns and Shawn Eacott. Each served a different purpose on the tour, yet all worked together to make Rhett’s show sound its best.
Clark, who graduated from Belmont in 2014 with a degree in audio engineering technology, served as the front-of-house systems engineer and the audio crew chief. He said that his time at Belmont was helpful in getting him to where he is now, because it allowed him to get connected in Nashville and practice the things he learned in class.
“My most memorable moments on campus were working in the Curb Event Center and working showcases with fellow classmates who are now out working with me on the Thomas Rhett tour,” said Clark. He also noted that Adjunct Lecturer Scott Munsell has worked hard to make the live sound program what it is today. “Scott has added many classes to this program as well as increased the curriculum with many important and industry related topics,” he said.
For Belmont students, the opportunity to take part in Curb Event Center showcases provides meaningful real world practice. Eacott agreed, saying that his experience working the showcases was a stand out from his time at Belmont.
Eacott served as Rhett’s PA tech on tour and graduated from Belmont in 2017 with a degree in audio engineering technology. When looking back at his time at Belmont, Eacott said that the thing that prepared him most for where he is today was his time spent working in the Massey Performing Arts Center under Rusty King.
“There were so many valuable things I learned from that hands-on experience,” he said. “I was in a place where it was okay to make mistakes and learn from them, and that helped me grow tremendously.” He also said that King was a great role model for him and other students and shaped him into the professional he is today.
Other Belmont graduates on the Thomas Rhett tour included Lighting Crew Chief Greg Ogne, Lighting Tech Keaton Lovell, Drum/Bass Tech Justin Meeks and Production Manager Kevin Twist.
Special event held earlier today to ‘mark the moment’
Created to honor Harold Bradley, a legendary session artist who has played on thousands of songs and is known to be the most widely recorded guitarist in history, Belmont University announced the creation of the Harold Bradley Endowed Scholarship at an event held on campus earlier this afternoon. Harold and his brother Owen were key architects of the Nashville sound and style of recording, helping to build a recording industry and lay the foundation for Music City.
The scholarship, funded by two anonymous donors, will be awarded to freshman guitar students in Belmont’s College of Visual and Performing Arts through their graduation.
Senior Director of Development and External Relations Debbie Sprang said, “We are so grateful to these donors for their generosity, and we look forward to honoring Mr. Bradley’s extensive legacy through this scholarship.”
The announcement was held at Belmont’s Gallery of Iconic Guitars (GIG) and included a guitar performance by three Belmont students. Attendees included Bradley’s family, a number of his close friends and College of Visual and Performing Arts Dean Dr. Stephen Eaves and faculty members.
Dean Eaves said, “This generous gift will not only honor Mr. Bradley, but it will provide meaningful support for the next generation of guitarists. I know students will be thrilled to receive this scholarship and be motivated to aspire to the legacy of Harold Bradley.”
Dr. Patrick Morse, assistant professor of psychology, has three publications in press with psychology majors as co-authors. The psychology majors are Sielo Coleman, Rachel Holloway and Cille Taylor. Additionally, Morse has published a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Psychological Situations. Below are details of these publications.
Coleman, S. & Morse, P. J. (In Press). Exogamy. V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. Springer International Publishing.
Holloway, R. & Morse, P. J. (In Press). Social Intelligence. V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. Springer International Publishing.
Taylor, C. & Morse, P. J. (In Press). Trait-Situation Interaction. V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. Springer International Publishing.
Morse, P. J., & Sweeny, K. (2017). Medical Situations. D. Funder, J. Rauthmann, & R. Sherman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of psychological situations. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Karina Glushchak, a junior honors student and neuroscience major, was awarded a Fall Undergraduate Research Grant of $1,500 from Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, along with faculty sponsor Dr. Timothy Schoenfeld, assistant professor of psychology. The grant will fund Glushchak’s honor thesis research to be conducted over the next two semesters.
The project, entitled, “Long-term Effects of High-fat Diet and Light Deprivation in Adolescent Rats,” will attempt to answer an unknown question in the fields of psychology, nutrition and neuroscience: do eating and sleeping habits during adolescence have long-lasting effects on memory into adulthood?
Glushchak plans to manipulate rats’ diet and ability to sleep during their adolescent periods. All rats will then have the same regular diet and sleep schedules throughout their young adult periods and when fully grown adults, they will be tested for different forms of learning and memory, and their brains will be analyzed. This research will shed light on how unhealthy habits during adolescence might be harmful into adulthood, even when behaviors become healthier.
Dr. Lonnie Yandell, professor of psychology, recently had two research articles get published, which he co-authored with Belmont psychology majors. The articles are below:
Lang, J. & Yandell, L. R. (in press). Diversity language as system maintenance: Toward alternative frameworks for addressing racism at predominantly white institutions. Christian Higher Education: An International Journal of Research, Theory, and Practice.
Priest, R., & Yandell, L. (in press). Dyadic meta-accuracy and perceived motivational accuracy in academic work groups. Modern Psychological Studies.
On Friday, January 18, Belmont hosted a convocation featuring Big Kenny of country music duo Big & Rich. Kenny shared his journey to country music and advice for entering the music industry with students.
Kenny is a singer, songwriter, producer, musician and humanitarian who has co-written Tim McGraw’s “Last Dollar (Fly Away),” Gretchen Wilson’s “Here for the Party,” and Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown” and “Amarillo Sky.” He also wrote most of Big & Rich’s four studio albums.
Kenny shared that his music career began in a small church choir in a farm town in Virginia. He worked in construction and on his family’s farm throughout his early twenties, but soon realized he wanted to pursue a career in music.
With a dream and his toolbox in hand, just in case, Kenny packed his bags, locked his house in Virginia and headed to Nashville.
Within three months, he had a band together playing a few gigs a week, and within a year, he had a record deal and was on his way to a lifetime music career.
Kenny shared that everywhere he went and with everyone he met, he was inspired and blown away by talent. He said that any chance he had to meet someone, get in a door or play some music, he took the opportunity and ran with it.
Kenny reminisced on the days of The Music Mafia, a musically artistic group of friends in a music industry alliance. He shared that by getting together at venues to play and write together, these singer/songwriters didn’t have to clean up after themselves and they knew that no matter what happened in their careers, they had each other.
Multiple record deals and many concerts later, he met John Rich around the time he was leaving Lonestar, a country music band. By the end of that year, they had written 100 songs together.
“Some of the greatest things that happened to me, happened by mistake and propelled me to each step along the way,” he said.
Big Kenny
Kenny concluded by sharing with students that their minds can get them down or enlighten and open new opportunities.
“Decide in that moment to let it enlighten you and remember this conversation,” said Kenny. “You make the decision where you want to go.”
Eason Taylor, a senior psychology major, was awarded a 2019 Psi Chi Eastern Psychological Association Regional Research Award for the study “Examining the Effects of Exercise on Frustration-induced Anxiety-like Behavior in Rats.” This study, conducted under the supervision and guidance of Dr. Timothy Schoenfeld, assistant professor of psychology as part of Belmont’s Summer Scholars program, sought to examine how exercise reduces anxious behavior and stress hormones in rats following experimentally-induced frustration.
Eason will receive a $400 cash award and will be publicly recognized at the Psi Chi Awards Ceremony at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in New York City February 28 – March 2.
